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Coach had impermissible contact with recruit

BLOOMINGTON – Indiana coach Tom Crean's secondary NCAA basketball violation will cost the school two recruiting days and an off-campus contact. It will not come close to producing the sanctions that ended Kelvin Sampson's Hoosier coaching tenure.

According to an Indiana release, the university self-reported the secondary violation after Crean had off-season contact with a recruit last Thursday, Oct. 6. The release stated assistant coach Tim Buckley mistakenly told Crean that Thursday was the last day of a fall contact period. In fact, it was the first day of an evaluation period. Off-campus contact was not allowed.

So Crean paid a visit to the recruit, reportedly Hamilton Southeastern guard Gary Harris. That was a NCAA violation. Coaches reported the violation immediately to the IU compliance office as soon as they realized their mistake.

IU agreed to give up one contact with the recruit and to cut the number of recruiting person days from 130 to 128. The Hoosiers also lost one of their three allowable off-contact sessions with the recruit.

Here is Indiana's official statement regarding the violation:

“Coach Crean immediately reported an inadvertent recruiting contact violation to our compliance office, and we are following our normal procedures.”

Harris, a top-25 prospect nationally from the Class of 2012, is set to attend Saturday night's Hoosier Hysteria event at Assembly Hall. So are the five players already committed to the Class of 2012 (Yogi Ferrell, Hanner Perea, Jeremy Hollowell, Ron Patterson and Peter Jurkin), Class of 2013 standout Derek Willis, and more.